


how rare and beautiful it is to even exist

by good_ho_mens



Series: Love, Not Loved [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Cassie Sandsmark & Tim Drake & Kon-El | Conner Kent & Bart Allen, Cassie Sandsmark Is A Good Friend, Cassie Sandsmark Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson is a Good Brother, Funerals, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is a good brother, Tim Drake is Dead, eyyyy its the last funeral after this we can be happier, fellas time to cry, kinda kjefwejkf, other characters but they don't really talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:47:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27766969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/good_ho_mens/pseuds/good_ho_mens
Summary: “Love.”“What?”“Don’t you still love him?” She asks them softly, looking up again. She lifts the arm that isn’t in Cissie’s hold and taps her chest, just above her heart. “Because I do. I love all of them so much it feels like I die every morning. When I wake up and I remember that I’m never going to see Bart smile or hear Kon laugh or listen to Tim go on and on about a case ever again. I keep dying, over and over again and every day I open my eyes and I think I love them even more.”
Series: Love, Not Loved [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016593
Comments: 20
Kudos: 79





	how rare and beautiful it is to even exist

**Author's Note:**

> If you want some extra juicy tears you can listen to my Bruce Wayne Is a Sad Father playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2R581qq8Bo7nhB9qEfcfZC

In the dream she’s flying over rooftops, swerving around chimneys and laughing in a voice that isn’t hers. In the dream she’s running through the streets, a quip on her lips too fast for anyone but her to hear, and her feet never tire. In the dream she is swinging from a rope in a city that is darker than the eyes of her grandfather, her cape whipping out behind her in the wind.

Cassie wakes up in her bed and she is herself, staring at the blaring alarm clock on her side table.

She reaches out to stop it with a frown, intent on rolling over and going back to sleep because Saturday’s are not days to get up at six am, and her bed is warm and her eyelids are heavy.

The black dress she laid out over the back of her desk chair catches her eye as she begins to close them again, and it all comes back.

Her bones ache, and in the dream she is invincible, and in the world she is small.

The dress fits familiarly, she’d bought it two years ago and had used it two times before now, but two and now three is enough for the fabric to sit on her shoulders with a weight that she knows all too well.

She stops by the bathroom to brush her teeth and make a poor attempt at mascara and smears concealer under her eyes to hide the dark circles, but no matter how much she put on, it wouldn’t hide the exhaustion in her eyes, and the way her cheeks seem to have sunken, her frame shriveled.

Cassie has aged lifetimes in the past two and a half years. She flicks the light off in the bathroom before she turns to the door, and walks down the stairs --walks--, because she won’t fly today. 

Her mother is in the kitchen, stirring scrambled eggs on the stove, a hand on her hip. Cassie clears her throat in the doorway, standing awkwardly in place.

“Good morning,” Her mom says pleasantly, piling eggs onto a plate. She turns, setting it on the dining table and tapping on the wood next to it pointedly.

Cassie sighs and sits down, taking the fork her mom offers and pushing the eggs around her plate with it. “Are you sure Diana’s okay with taking me?”

“Of course she is,” Her mom says, turning to rinse the egg pan in the sink. “She cares about you. Besides, she’ll be there for her own friend too.”

Her fork clatters down onto the table and Cassie closes her eyes, bringing her hands up to cover her face. Her stomach churns and she swallows back the wave of nausea that hits her. “How am I supposed to do this?”

“The same way you do everything,” Her mom says, closer now. A brush tugs at her hair, her mom’s hand on her shoulder, keeping her in place, “bravely.”

“Mom,” Cassie groans, and her voice is hoarser than it was a few minutes ago.

The brush runs across her scalp and for a moment she can pretend it’s Kon’s hand as he untangles her hair with his fingers, sectioning it off to braid. She can pretend the hand on her shoulder is Tim’s, warm and comforting and steady. She can pretend the faint wind from the motorized fan by the doorway is Bart as he speeds past.

She opens her eyes and the hand is her mothers, and the brush is just a brush, and the wind is just a fan blowing into an almost empty room.

She doesn’t think she can do this, but she’s Wonder Girl, and more importantly she’s a friend, so she will.

Even so, she is very, very afraid.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Her mom says, crouching down beside her, the brush still clutched in one hand. “I can’t imagine the grief you’re feeling. But I know you’re strong enough to push through it.”

Cassie doesn’t think so, but she doesn’t say that.

A heavy knock sounds at the front door and Cassie pushes her plate away, ignoring her mother’s sigh, grabs her jacket off the hook and yanks it on, then tugs her flats on, balancing on one foot as she unlocks the deadbolt.

Diana stands on the other side of the door, wearing a simple black dress with leather armor over top, her hair pulled into a tight braid at her back. She smiles, and her eyes are aged. 

“Hello, Cassie.”

“Hey,” She replies, and it takes her a few seconds to snap back into reality, jumping aside. “Sorry. Do you want to come in?”

Diana shakes her head kindly, “That’s alright. We should probably get going.”

“Oh right.” Cassie looks down at the threshold, and she doesn’t think she can cross it.

Her mother’s hand once again sets itself on her shoulder. “Diana. Thank you again for taking her.”

“It’s no problem,” Diana says, “I would have been going anyway.”

The hand on her shoulder tightens, and when Cassie looks up her jaw goes slack at the sight of tears in her mom’s eyes. She nods at Diana, blinking fast, “Yes. I can’t imagine what it must be like for him, to lose a child…”

Diana nods back, her eyebrows turning down in sympathy. “Unfortunately, he knows all too well the feeling.”

Her mom hums sadly, leans down to kiss Cassie’s cheek, and whispers, “You’re not just a hero because of your powers, baby. Use that big heart today.”

Cassie can feel the tears prick at her eyes as her mom gives her a gentle push, sending her stumbling out the door. It’s cold outside, and she wraps her arms around herself. She can see her breath when she exhales, a reminder that she’s breathing, that her heart is pumping, that she’s here.

That they’re not.

She’s sitting in the car when it hits her. She knew where she was going, she knew what’s happening, but something solidifies into place when she sees the Gotham City welcome sign, vandalized with graffiti, warnings to turn back or leave your soul behind you.

Tim is dead.

Her eyes follow the city sign, reading every message there.

_ ‘If you’ve passed this point, it’s already too late’. _

There was an argument, one of their first fights after becoming friends, really. Standing on a skyscraper in Metropolis after Tim had shown up from a three month absence, bruised and beaten, talking about the Joker and his vendetta against birds.

He’d told them that’s just how Gotham is, and he’d shrugged, like it had happened before, like it would happen again. He’d shrugged and Kon had gone mad with fury, shouting until he was hoarse while Cassie just tried to get them all to calm down.

Bart asked him, why he wouldn’t just leave. Tim had gone very quiet, and then he said, “It’s about loyalty, or maybe it’s about hope.” and that had been it.

Cassie hadn’t said it then, but that was the moment she realized what Gotham really was.

When she heard what happened, how Tim died in a flurry of fire and bullets, she hadn’t been guilty over the news that Gotham burned with him.

She tips her head against the window so she can see the sky, gray and the kind of still that tempts a snowfall but more likely means a desolate day of stagnant sorrow.

“Do you think it would rain at my funeral?” She asks Diana quietly.

Diana doesn’t take her eyes off the road, but she glares with the flare of righteous fury Cassie is so familiar with and says, “It would  _ thunder.” _

Cassie thinks  _ good, _ because she deserves the chaos and fury. She thinks  _ no, _ because when her loved ones stand at her grave, she thinks they deserve the quiet.

The Wayne driveway is filled to the brim with cars, packed tightly in rows along the grass. People mile about, some she recognizes, and some she doesn’t. Cassie sits forward more as they pull in further, looking around with wide eyes.

“There are so many people,” She mutters, and then, to Diana, “How are you going to find a spot this far up?”

“That’s how,” Diana says with a small smile, nodding ahead of them.

There Clark stands, next to a rickety old truck Cassie remembers from when they used to drive through dirt roads with the windows down, pretending to be normal teenagers and talking in awful fake southern accents just to make Kon mad. He’s blocking a parking spot, and maybe it’s his physique or the angry and exhausted look in his eyes that keeps people from testing him.

He moves as soon as Diana is in view, the tension in his shoulders relieving imperceptibly. Cassie gets it. She remembers when seeing her friends could make the worst things go away, or just fade, for a little while.

She doesn’t know if she’ll ever feel that beautiful elation ever again.

Diana parks the car and shuts off the engine. She doesn’t hesitate to get out of the car, maybe because she’s Wonder Woman, or maybe because Clark is waiting for her.

She watches as they embrace, Diana pulling back to cup Clark’s face between her hands, and Cassie tries to imagine Kon waiting for her like that, his face in her hands, his sad smile and wet eyes staring into hers.

It doesn’t help. She doesn’t want to get out of the car.

It’s Clark that opens the passenger door for her. She can see Kon in him, in his jawline and hair, the way his smile quirks like he’s about to make a joke even when he’s not. He holds out a hand, and maybe because he’s Superman or maybe because he was Kon’s dad, Cassie takes it.

She hops out of the car, and Clark doesn’t let go of her hand. She feels like a kid again, scared of the world around her because it is so much bigger than she is. She doesn’t let go either.

Diana’s hand finds her shoulder and she imagines just for one moment what it would be like to have a mom and dad at the same time. To be a normal girl with a normal life who isn’t going to her best friend’s funeral.

She can’t imagine it for long.

“Cassie!” Someone shouts, and Cassie turns to see Cissie jogging towards her. Clark lets go of her hand, and Cassie immediately misses the contact. A second later though, it’s replaced with Cissie’s arms around her, her lips pressed to her ear as she says, “I’m here.”

It takes two seconds for Cassie to start crying. She closes her eyes, some of Cissie’s hair sticking to her wet eyelashes. It means something because  _ they _ aren’t here, because Cissie wasn’t here, not really, for the others. 

“I’m here,” Cissie says again, pulling back to wipe her tears away with the bottom of her palms. She laughs wetly as she smears her mascara, licking her thumb to wipe that away too. “You see how many people are here? Always said Tim was a pompous ass.”

Anyone else and Cassie would defend him, get angry. She snorts, “Yeah.”

“You want to go see Anita?”

Cassie looks behind her, where Diana stands, holding Clark’s arm. She nods, “You go. We need to find Bruce.”

Cissie winces, “Good luck.”

With another nod, Diana walks past them, stopping next to Cassie and after a moment of hesitation, presses a kiss to the side of her head. Clark smiles at her as he follows, and suddenly she understands what Tim was talking about, when he said sometimes people looked at him and saw ghosts.

“Come on,” Cissie prompts gently, and Cassie allows her to lead her blindly through the crowd. 

They end up on the other side of manson, in the lawn next to the back porch. There are lights strung up but not turned on, a still fountain in a clear space, no water spouting from its tip. If she looked inside, she wonders how many wishes she’d see, dry and abandoned. 

Anita is standing with her shoulder leaning against a tree, surveying the crowded lawn with poorly disguised wariness. When she sees them, however, her face brightens, and her shoulders slump, and it’s grief and happiness all at once.

The moment she’s within reach Cassie is pulled into another hug. Anita smells like apple sauce and aged paper and a golden age Cassie thinks about far too often these days.

“Oh, mon,” She says, pulling back and kissing Cassie’s nose lightly. “I’m so sorry.”

She can’t tell them she’s alone now, because they’re here, living proof that she’s not, but the feeling is still there. The deep pit of loneliness where her heart used to be. “Hi, Anita.”

“Crowded, huh?”

“Tim knew a lot of people.”

Cassie looks around, watches the faces, tucks her hands into her jacket pocket. 

“I wonder what they took from him,” She says before she can stop herself. She doesn’t have to turn to see their confused faces to know they’re there. Her eyes stay on the crowd. “That’s how Tim worked, right? You met him, he gave you everything he had, and when it was over you had a little more, and he had a little less.”

“Cassie--”

“Do you think he ever got tired? Carrying it all with so little space for himself?”

“Mon, I don’t think--”

“I wonder what I took from him a lot. I wonder if it was being the leader or something deeper, harder to replace.” Cassie laughs, self deprecating and hollow and everything she is now. “I guess it doesn’t matter though, because nothing could compare to what this city took from him.”

Cissie reaches out to hold her elbow, her eyes are pleading. “I know you’re hurting right now, but you can’t think that’s all Tim was. It’s not just unfair to his friends and family, and to you, it's unfair to Tim.”

“He wasn’t just a one way street of helping,” Anita adds. “He was a person who took and was adored and got angry and scared and overwhelmed. He was taxing and obnoxious and infuriating and we all loved him for it.”

Cassie stares at them, her eyes filling with tears again. She looks down at Cissie’s hand on her elbow, her fingernails painted green and red. Her voice is less than a whisper, “Love.”

“What?”

“Don’t you still love him?” She asks them softly, looking up again. She lifts the arm that isn’t in Cissie’s hold and taps her chest, just above her heart. “Because I do. I love all of them so much it feels like I die every morning. When I wake up and I remember that I’m never going to see Bart smile or hear Kon laugh or listen to Tim go on and on about a case ever again. I keep dying, over and over again and every day I open my eyes and I think I love them even more.”

Anita’s bottom lip wobbles while Cissie’s pinch, both of them have tears in their eyes. Cissie nods, “I called Tim last night. I called him and I listened to his phone ring for a long time before I realized, and I looked at my calendar and saw his funeral was the next day and-- and I broke my phone. To bits. I threw it at the wall. It’s not even usable anymore.”

“I shocked myself on a metal door handle,” Anita says, “and every time Bart held my hand just flashed through my mind like a montage.”

Cassie sniffs, her nails biting into her palms. “We’re never going to touch them again.”

“I know, Cassie,” Cissie says, voice choked.

“I’m so angry.”

“I know.”

“The last time I saw him, I didn’t even say goodbye.”

“He would forgive you.”

“I know.”

Anita takes her hand, carefully pulling her nails away from her skin. She squeezes it, once. “We love him. We love all of them.”

Cissie reaches up and tucks a strand of Cassie’s hair behind her ear, “One day you’ll be able to say that without the lump in your throat, and you’ll be able to laugh about them without crying.”

“When?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I’ll call you when I figure it out,” Anita says with a chuckle. 

Cassie yanks both of them into a hug, her arms at a weird angle and one of Cissie’s shoulders pressed uncomfortably against her neck. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. One day she’ll be able to hug people and she won’t think about Kon’s cologne or Tim’s hair tickling her ear or Bart’s arms buzzing as they wrap around her waist.

That day isn’t today though, and she begins to drift back to those memories.

When she went back to the house with Tim, after he’d fallen asleep, she’d stood up, kissed his hair, and tiptoed away. As she shut the door to the house she looked up at the old, looming thing, and asked it to remember.

To remember those nights when they stayed up so late they got delirious with exhaustion and laughed at every sound. The lazy days spent trying to learn how to cook and bribing Bart to clean up the mess with promises of donuts and the first turn at their next movie night.

To remember the times when they’d get back beaten and battered with the images of bloodshed and death stuck in their eyes until they could barely see each other anymore. Climbing onto Cassie’s bed in a giant pile while Tim told them with a soft voice that they did everything they could. While Bart cried and asked how they were supposed to do this. While none of them could answer.

She asked the house to remember all the things she’s too scared to remember herself. The memories tucked away in the back of her brain that only come to light when it rains and her elbow smarts from all those years ago when she broke it in a bike race with Kon, or when her skateboard makes a skidmark on the pavement and she looks around for the other three, the competition when they all tried to make the longest one.

In her closet hangs a leather jacket, with red goggles tucked into the pocket. 

Cassie remembers on the days she can’t breathe, but she gave the rest to the lonely house where the dust will once again settle, and the pool will still, and the old polaroids and left out clothes will fade, and the house will remember it all.

The house will remember when it was a home, even when Cassie is too scared to remember when she was a we.

The arms around her drop as she comes to the realization that she doomed that old house for eternity, that even when it is torn down and replaced, the ghosts of laughter and a brighter time will echo in the space it used to fill.

“I love you,” Cissie says.

Anita hums, wiping at her eyes. “I love both of you girls, with everything I’ve got.”

Cassie manages a smile, and it’s more genuine than she thought she was capable of. “I love you guys, too.”

She turns again, and her eyes catch broad shoulders and a black jacket, black hair, the side profile of a sharp jawline. She has to remind herself it isn’t Tim. Her feet move involuntarily and she stops, looking back at Cissie and Anita.

“Go, love,” Anita says. “You know where to find us.”

Cissie is more direct, even though her voice is soft, “Goodbye, Cass. Call, okay?”

“Okay,” Cassie whispers, and her feet are moving again, across the grass and between the people whose faces she doesn’t know.

At a set of foldable chairs she stops, staring at the picture of Tim. He’s smiling, wide and happy. It can’t have been taken in the last two years, because she hasn’t seen his eyes so bright in a long time. There’s a spatter of almost invisible freckles across his nose, and she realizes it must be from right after he saved Bruce from time. The desert gave him an almost tan, and his hair got longer that year.

Forcefully pulling her gaze away from the picture, she turns to the chairs, walking slowly towards the filled ones. 

Jon sees her first, sitting closest to where she is, holding one of Damian’s hands in both of his.

“Cassie,” He says, managing a smile, “I’m glad you’re here.”

She almost can’t reply. She looks at him and it’s Kon in every way he should have been. Kon who should’ve been a little kid but also should have been able to grow. He was born a teenager and died that way and Jon’s eyes look so much like his. She swallows thickly, “Me too.”

Damian looks up then, and his eyes are red as he meets hers. “Hello.”

Cassie waves, then winces, and drops her hand. She opens her mouth to say she’s sorry, or whatever generic funeral line she keeps hearing, but shakes her head. “Hi.”

“Timothy left you this,” Damian says, reaching into his pocket to pull out a wrinkled envelope. He scowls at it in distaste, “It seems he wrote it a long time ago. In preparation, I suppose.”

Jon leans over to whisper something in Damian’s ear, and he sighs, but nods. Standing, he presses the envelope into her hand and turns, walking away.

“He’s just tired,” Jon explains with the ghost of a smile. “He’s going to find Dick for you, though. I saw you earlier, when you walked over. He’s who you were looking for, right?”

Cassie looks up from the envelope in her hands, scrawled with her name in Tim’s messy handwriting, and nods mutely. She doesn’t know why she suddenly needed to talk to Dick so bad when she saw him, but here she is. “Thanks, bud.”

“You want him here,” Jon says, “my brother.”

“Yeah,” Cassie responds, throat tight. “I’d give anything.”

Jon nods, “Me too.”

God, he’s so young. He’s so young and he’s lost so much, and Cassie looks at Tim’s picture again and across the lawn where Barry is talking quietly to Bruce, Clark and Diana at his side, and she knows he’s only going to lose more.

“I’m sorry.”

“He’s never gonna hug me again,” Jon says. 

Cassie’s lip wobbles, and she nods. “He gave pretty awesome hugs, huh?”

“The best.”

They go quiet, and Cassie tries not to see Kon when she looks at him, but she fails.

Damian returns, his shoulders slumped as he drops into the seat next to Jon. Jon just hums, wraps an arm around him, and starts whispering to him again. Dick, only a few steps behind, ruffles both of their hair, smiling at Cassie like he’s doing everything he can to hold it together.

They walk away from the full chairs, sitting at the very back, tucked into a shaded corner the gray sunlight doesn’t reach. Cassie shivers, pulling her jacket around herself.

“This is a first,” Dick says, breaking the silence. “Funeral, I mean, without him.”

Cassie’s breath hitches. She’d been trying to avoid that all day, that before, at least she had Tim to hold onto. She nods, “Yeah.”

“For me, too. He was there, for Damian’s funeral.” Dick shakes his head, “Not Jason’s, but he was there right after, to make things lighter, to remind me I still had something.”

“You’ve lost all your brothers,” Cassie says, realization hitting her.

“And you’ve lost all of your best friends.”

Cassie looks down at her lap, pulling handfuls of her skirt into her grip. “What now?”

“I don’t know.” Dick hums, “I’ve always had him to tell me that. I was the big brother, sure, but he was the fixer, the planner. He had an answer for everything.”

“I keep thinking that if I wait long enough, the answer will come. Like I’ll suddenly gain that knowledge Tim had and magically know how to fix all of this.” Cassie watches a tear hit the back of her hand. “He thought he could bring them back, and he thought he could help me, and he thought he could save Gotham. Was that what got him killed?”

Dick swallows, shakes his head. “No. He died saving us, saving me. He did what he did on purpose. I think that he… I just think he couldn’t lose anyone else.”

“He fixed it,” Cassie says bitterly.

“Everyone gets it wrong, sometimes. This was Tim’s.”

“I don’t think so. I think this was his biggest right of all, at least in his own head.”

“I’d rather watch him fail at everything he does,” Dick says, “then have to sit through this funeral.”

“Me too.”

“We’re not alone, Cassie. There’s just a Tim sized hole right now, and it feels bigger than any filled one.”

Cassie snorts, “That’s like saying we’re not going to drown, because more of the boat doesn’t have holes than it does.”

Dick knocks his shoulder against hers, “Luckily, we’ve got life vests.”

“Luckily,” Cassie agrees weakly.

“He’d hate this,” Dick says after a moment with a bitter laugh. “He used to tell me that when he died, he didn’t want vultures at his funeral. He wanted people who loved him, and that’s it.”

Cassie looks around, hands gripping her skirt tighter in her lap. “Why, then?”

“They just showed up, in waves. Normally we’d kick them out but… god, I think we’re all just tired.”

“I understand.”

Dick looks at her for a minute, and then turns away, bracing his elbows on his knees. “In all the movies there’s this moment, when they first find out the character is dead. Where they fall to their knees and scream or cry. It doesn’t actually happen like that. At least, not for me. I didn’t even comprehend what was happening until I got home, and I called him. It went straight to voicemail and I just-- I asked him to come back, and that’s when it hit me, because he didn’t. He won’t.”

“I was at school,” Cassie whispers. “I saw it on the news. I just started hyperventilating. My professor sent me to the nurse, I didn’t even make it halfway there before I started flying. I went all the way to their graves, Bart and Kon’s. I wanted to tell them in person.”

Dick nods, and Cassie thinks he might be the only person who she can say that to who won’t think she’s crazy.

“Yo, Dick,” Jason calls out, sauntering across the grass to stop by them. “Service is starting.”

Dick rubs his eyes with one hand and stands, “Yeah. Okay.”

Jason turns to Cassie, smiling tightly before it drops again, “Hey, blondie.”

“Hi, Jason.”

“You got someone here with you?”

Cassie nods, looking around, “Yeah, Diana.”

“She’s busy with Bruce. You can sit with us.”

“No, I couldn’t. Those rows are for--”

“Family,” Jason interrupts, already turning to walk back, “I know.”

Looking up at Dick as if for a second okay, Cassie smiles a little at him when he rolls his eyes and nods like it’s obvious she’s allowed. They trail behind Jason, passing small groups of strangers.

“I knew we should’ve just showed up for the will reading,” A man mutters to his wife as they pass. “Appearances be damned. Who are we here to impress? Some dead kid?”

Anger flares up inside Cassie’s gut, but it stifles a little when she notices Dick. He looks furious, his eyes alight with fury as he spins on the man, one of his fists reeling. Cassie’s eyes widen but she doesn’t have time --or maybe, deep down, she doesn’t want to interfere-- to stop him before he’s swinging his fist towards the man’s face.

Jason catches his elbow before it can connect. He yanks Dick back, hissing in his ear, “Don’t do this here.”

“This  _ bastard--” _ Dick starts, shoving Jason off of him. He starts towards the man again, only to have Jason once again pull him back.

People are starting to stare now, Cassie takes a step back, eyes flicking between Dick and Jason and the man who looks bewildered, like he doesn’t understand what he did wrong.

“Let me go,” Dick growls, pulling back once again, but this time it looks like he’s about to punch Jason.

Jason yanks him into a restricting hug before he can follow through, arms wrapped around him and their temples pressed together. Cassie hears him whisper, “Come on, big brother. He wouldn’t want this.”

Dick deflates, his forehead hitting Jason’s shoulder as he starts to mutter apologies. Jason just shakes his head and leads him away. 

Cassie starts to follow, but pauses, turning to the man. She glares at him, hands clenched at her sides. 

“Leave,” She snarls, nodding towards the walkway that leads back to the front of the house. “Now.”

“You can’t--”

_ “Go.” _

The man goes.

Cassie takes a deep breath, dropping her chin to her chest.

“I’m sorry about that,” A deep voice rumbles behind her, and she spins, startled, to see Bruce. He nods at the man, “And thank you. I was just on the way to do that myself. You saved me the trouble.”

“God, no, don’t-- please don’t apologize or thank me. Not for that. Not today.”

Bruce huffs an almost laugh and slips a hand into his pocket. When Cassie looks closer she can see how tired he looks, how torn apart. He turns, gesturing for her to follow. “Fair enough. I was also going to thank you for coming, but I guess that’s off the table now, too.”

“It’s Tim.”

“Yes, it is.”

Cassie hesitates for all of seven seconds before she skips a step to catch up to him, pinching the end of his coat sleeve with two fingers. “I’m sorry you lost another son.”

“I’m sorry you lost another friend,” Bruce replies, his wrist twisted up to take the hand that’s holding his sleeve. He smiles sadly down at her, “What are you going to do?”

“Cry a lot,” Cassie answers honestly. “Drink way too much hot chocolate. Add something to my suit.”

“You wear Bart’s goggles now, don’t you?”

“Yeah, and jeans, like Kon.”

“Practical?”

“Hey, I’m not the one flipping off buildings and swinging on grappling lines like City Slicker Tarzan.”

Bruce laughs at that, squeezing her hand. “No, I suppose you aren’t.”

When they reach the chairs, Damian is sitting in Dick’s lap, his head propped against his shoulder. Cass sits at his feet, leaning back against his knees. Jason is on the side furthest from them, looking defensive and protective in the way Tim always described him.

Alfred is on the other side of Jason, and he looks old. Stephanie has her head on his lap as he massages her scalp.

Bruce lets go of her hand to sit in between Dick and Duke. Cassie sits on Duke’s other side before she can chicken out.

“Hey,” Duke says.

Cassie nods, “Hi.”

After a second, Duke holds out a hand, palm up. “We haven’t met. I’m Duke.”

“Cassie,” She responds, shaking his hand, and then, at the same time as him, says, “Tim talked about you a lot.”

Duke snorts, and doesn’t let go of her hand. “He said you’re the bravest person he knows.”

“He said you’re everything he wanted the bats to be.”

His eyes go glossy at that, and he turns to face forward. “Funny, I thought the same thing about him.”

“Me too,” Cassie says, and it’s true. In all the years she knew him, Tim was always brave.

Bruce stands then, kissing Dick on the top of his head before he walks the rest of the way to the small clearing, in between the flours and the picture of Tim. He pulls a paper out of his pocket and unfolds it carefully as he takes a deep breath.

“The first time I met Tim, he wasn’t mine yet,” Bruce starts, his hands shaking as he grips the paper, and Cassie tries to connect this grieving man in front of her with the stone cold Batman she’d met all those years ago. After a short pause, he swallows and begins again, “It was at some charity ball, and I was surrounded by women and socialites, and looking for a way out.”

Cassie looks around imperceptibly, seeing the shocked faces of Gotham’s richest vultures who have never seen Brucie Wayne act anything other than drunk.

Bruce doesn’t even look up. “I looked across the room and there was this little boy, no older than six, he was missing his front teeth and kept fidgeting with his tie. I-- well I sent Dick to check on him, the last thing I needed was people watching me approach a strange child alone.”

“No, sir,” Dick chimes in, his voice wet. It sends a skitter of laughter through the crowd.

“Dick came back to tell me that he was the Drake boy, just a tiny thing, who’d been separated from his parents. We helped him find them and just before we did Tim looked at Dick, and then he looked up at me, and said-- he said, “you’re a good dad, Mr. Wayne”. I’ve tried to live up to that praise ever since.” Bruce closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, a tear slips down his nose. 

Cassie thinks that this is the man Tim always talked about. The man who sat with him in the rain after his mother died, and never asked him to go inside, or told him everything was going to be okay. Just gave him his coat and watched the clouds weep when Tim himself couldn’t.

Bruce drops his eyes back to the paper, and says, “I lost my son. That’s the simplicity of it, if that’s what you’re looking for. I am a father, and I have outlived him. I am an ant, and I have outlived the stars.”

Someone makes a noise next to her, and she’s pretty sure it’s Alfred, but she doesn’t look, because she doesn’t know if she can see him cry without shattering like glass.

“There’s a danger in loving someone,” Bruce continues. “In giving someone a piece of you, you’re allowing them to do whatever they want with it. To break it or throw it away or taint it. I was never worried that Tim would do any of those things. But when he died, that part of me did too. I think that-- I think that I don’t want it back.”

Tim told them why he became Robin. Told them what happens to a hero who only loses. Cassie’s chest constricts with fear, and she glances at Dick, but he just looks calm. Duke squeezes her hand.

Bruce huffs a dry laugh, “I don’t know what you believe in, I’m not even sure what I believe in, but if there is some kind of afterlife, some place where souls go when their bodies can’t hold them anymore… well that piece of me, it’ll go with him. It’ll stay with him when I can’t. Tim spent so much of his life alone, he doesn’t deserve to spend his death the same.”

Tim’s grave plot is next to Thomas and Martha. Side by side on the Wayne property, where he’ll always be home. Cassie covers her mouth as her head fills cotton and heavy fog that tastes like grief. Bruce just keeps talking.

“I never had the pleasure of holding my children when they were babies. I never got to witness their first steps, or their first words. I didn’t get to wake up to their cries or teach them what color the sky is or how to spell their name. I missed the earliest years of their existence, but I swore to myself that I would be there for the rest of it. This--” Bruce stops, and for the first time in her life, Cassie watches Batman break. His shoulders shake, and the paper in his hands crumples as he closes his fists. “This is not what I meant when I made that promise. I’m never-- I’m never going to hold him again.”

No one says a word. Next to her, Duke’s eyes are full of tears and his hand shakes in hers. She leans forward, catches Damian’s eye. He frowns at her, like he’s thinking, and then he stands and crosses the short distance between his chair and Bruce, and reaches up to hold his hand.

She’d been sitting at the back, at Kon’s funeral, but she could still see the agony on Clark’s face when the words got stuck in his throat. She could still see the look in Jon’s eye when he snapped him back to reality.

It’s the moment when the little boy realizes he has to grow up. When Peter Pan is no longer a fairy tale.

He leads Bruce to sit down, and Cassie watches with wide eyes.

This is it, what breaks the best of them. Batman, who faces death and villains and poison that shows him his greatest fears, this is what breaks him.

A too small casket and a life that will never fully be lived.

Her attention is pulled away from Bruce to Dick and Jason, their heads bowed, whispering to each other. After a few seconds, Jason stands, setting a hand on Dick’s shoulder. Dick reaches up to squeeze it before Jason pulls away, turning to address the crowd.

“Artis Henderson, in The Unremarried Widow, wrote, “people kept giving me space, all of us hoping my grief had a half-life, but I didn't need space. I needed people to say Miles's name out loud. I needed them not to flinch when I said it. Weren't they curious about the color of his eyes? I needed them to acknowledge not just that he had died but that he had lived”.” He quotes it from memory, like he’d read it so much it sits idle on his mind for whenever he needs it. Jason clears his throat, “So here goes, I guess. Tim… Tim was smart, the cleverest guy I ever met, but we all knew that. He liked trashy old Kung Fu movies and the way a record player sounded when the needle first touched down.”

Cassie had gotten a record player from her mom one year on her birthday. Tim came over and they spent all day stopping into old vintage shops, flipping through records and discussing Pink Floyd’s best albums.

Jason smiles like he’s remembering something, just like she is. “He hated green beans and his room was a mess because he controlled every part of his life, and that was the only space he could let go.”

Socks on the couch, an old coffee mug at the kitchen table, arguments over whose turn it was to do the dishes. Tim sitting on the floor with his computer in his lap and his hair sticking up straight, his shoulders relaxed as an empty chip bag crinkled under his leg.

“One time I asked him how electrical currents worked and two hours later I was getting a lecture on quantum mechanics.” Jason laughs again, and so do some people in the crowd. Cassie thinks she can hear Cissie’s familiar giggle. Jason’s face goes somber again, and he nods, swiping at his eyes before he shoves his hands deep into his pockets. “Tim was my brother, and I love him, and I never told him that, not enough. Oh, and his eyes, they’re blue.”

The world fades, after that. At some point, Duke pulls gently from her grip, trudging away with the rest of his family. Cassie stays in her seat, watches the crowd disperse, watches them start to lower Tim’s casket.

She’d picked a rose, the day before, from the bush by Bart’s grave. It sits in a vase on her dresser.

It will be dead by next week, but for now, it sits on her dresser, and it’s alive.

Alfred drops a handful of dirt into the pit and Cassie’s lungs stop working as her heart picks up to double time. Someone stops in the grass next to her, and Cassie already knows who it is by the heavy footsteps and careful footing.

"I was their leader," Cassie whispers, watching as Tim is covered with dirt. It strikes her that she's never going to see him smile again.

Diana sets a hand on her shoulder, eyebrows drawn together in sympathy, "It is the burden of a leader to watch her soldiers fall."

"They weren't  _ soldiers, _ Diana. They were--  _ are _ my family." She shrugs away, turning in her chair to face her mentor, "I love them, and I failed them, and  _ lost _ them. What are you supposed to say to that?"

Nothing, apparently. Diana sits down, and when she pulls Cassie into a hug it’s surprising and it’s warm and everything she wants and hates all at once. 

“I am sorry, Cassandra, that you have found so much heartache.”

Cassie doesn’t hear her. She watches as another shovel of dirt is pitched into the grave and she moves like she’s going to stand but Diana keeps her in place. “He doesn’t like to be alone in the dark, Diana.”

“I know.”

“They’re going to leave him alone in there,” She insists, once again trying and failing to pull away, “They’re going to leave him in the dark. He’ll be  _ alone _ in there. He doesn’t like being alone.”

Diana helps her stand, a hand around her back as she leads her away. Away from her last best friend, from the last person that tied her to that little girl with pigtails and a bright smile and a fierce loyalty to what she did. That little girl who smiled and saved kittens from trees and didn’t understand how often people die.

“He’ll be scared,” She whispers pitifully, and she thinks she might be talking about herself.

The car is cold when they get inside, and Diana turns the heat all the way up as she starts the engine.

Cassie waits until the manor is out of sight before she pulls the envelope out of her pocket. She opens it carefully, tugging out an old postcard that’s dated the year before Kon died. It’s a picture of a white sand beach, and she knows the postcard because Bart had one hanging on his wall at their headquarters. His said “someday”, with hearts Cassie had scrawled over it, a picture of a slice of pizza surfing by Kon, and a money sign Tim had drawn there. 

This one is identical, only instead of their own unique drawings and handwriting, there’s just a short note.

_ “If I’m not there to take you all to Tahiti, take the guys for me? Don’t forget to put on sunscreen, and remember you love me, but try not to cry too much. Love you Wondie. -Your Boy Wonder” _

It was an unsaid thing that all of them knew and didn’t talk about, that Tim would die first. He was self sacrificing and human and Gotham preys on its people like cats playing with mice until they have heart attacks and die from the fear. 

She used to have nightmares about this day, about the funeral she’d have to go to. She never imagined he would be the third, she never imagined it would be so soon.

They were supposed to go on vacation together.

Cassie stares at the postcard until they’re back at her house. 

She says goodbye to Diana and stumbles to her door, but as she unlocks it, something cold hits her nose.

She looks up at the gray sky, and it’s snowing.

In the dream she is falling, rubble and broken machine parts raining down with her as she screams in a voice that isn’t hers. In the dream she is lying in the street, a quip on her lips that she never gets to finish, and her feet are sore and tired. In the dream she is standing above the city that is worth it in her eyes, and when the bullets rain down her cape flies away in the wind.

Cassie wakes up in her bed the next morning and she is herself, breathing heavily as she turns to her phone, playing a Beach Boy ringtone she hasn’t heard in two years.

She reaches out and picks it up and her hand begins to shake when she sees the smiling face of her old friend on the call screen. Her thumb hovers over the green button, and something inside of her lifts like her heart is finally beating again.

The black dress she’d discarded on her floor catches her eye and her breath hitches.

_ “I think I could bring them back, you know.” _

In the dream she is falling, and in the world she is allowing herself a small flicker of hope. 

She presses the green button. She holds the phone to her ear.

“Superboy?”


End file.
